The great little device that is Rokuu has added to its armoury a not insubstantial ten new content channels to its set-top box. The channels include podcasting, social networking and music.

Roku, who make the little device that packs a punch, wirelessly able to stream media content from the internet onto any TV screen, is expanding from the current paltry 3 channels to a rather splendid 13. Channels for Blip.tv, Facebook Photos, Flickr, FrameChannel, Mediafly, MobileTribe, Motionbox, Pandora, Revision3, and TWiT will join the current lineup of Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and the recent addition MLB.TV.

Roku will introduce these channels in the Roku store which is similar to other app stores springing up on every mobile device around. Roku users can choose which applications to show on the home screen. The content can be sorted by “new,” “most popular,” and “top-rated.” But happily for all, these are free of charge. Access to the Channel Store and the new content will be rolled out automatically to existing Roku box owners over the next two weeks. New customers will need to sign up for a free Roku account to be able to download and manage their chosen channels.

Roku have said that 13 channels in the store is just a start and that there will be a steady stream of new channels showing up between now and the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Of course this still does little to compensate for losing Hulu channels. Although there is a promise that ‘Hulu is coming soon’. Still, at a great price point starting from $80. Roku are also offering a free software developer kit for anyone that fancies developing a new channel for Roku.

This little beauty can only be a bargain with the new content and promised content coming soon.

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The Pirate Bay – the worlds best known file sharing site has had four of its owners jailed for a year each today.

A Swedish court jailed the four men, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde in a landmark case after they were found guilty of breaking copyright law.

The Pirate Bay is the world’s most high profile file-sharing website and was set up in 2003 by anti copyright organisation Piratbyran. However it has been run by individuals for the last few years.

Every day millions of files including movies and tv streams are downloaded from the site. However no copyrighted material is hosted on The Pirate Bay servers. The site instead hosts ‘torrent’ links to TV shows, movies and music files held on the users computers that are ‘shared’ around.

The four were also ordered to pay $4.5m (Â£3m) in damages. Naturally music and movie companies welcomed the verdict but the men are now set to launch an immediate appeal and are refusing to pay the fine.

Peter Sunde, speaking at an online press conference described the verdict as “bizarre”.

“It’s serious to actually be found guilty and get jail time. It’s really serious. And that’s a bit weird,” Sunde commented.

“It is so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it’s even more bizarre that we were convicted as a team. The court said we were organised. I can’t get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you’re going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.

“We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn’t even give them the ashes.”

The damages have been awarded to a number of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures but fell short of the $17.5m in damages and interest the companies wanted.

Speaking to the BBC, the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy said the verdict sent out a clear message.

“These guys weren’t making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets. There was nothing meritorious about their behaviour, it was reprehensible.

“The Pirate Bay did immense harm and the damages awarded doesn’t even get close to compensation, but we never claimed it did.

“There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that,” he said.

The four men denied the charges throughout the trial, saying that because they did not actually host any files, they were not doing anything wrong.

“The court first tried whether there was any question of breach of copyright by the file-sharing application and that has been proved, that the offence was committed.

“The court then moved on to look at those who acted as a team to operate the Pirate Bay file-sharing service, and the court found that they knew that material which was protected by copyright but continued to operate the service,” he said.

A lawyer for Carl Lundstrom, Per Samuelson, told journalists he was shocked by the guilty verdict and the severity of the sentence.

“That’s outrageous, in my point of view. Of course we will appeal,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. “This is the first word, not the last. The last word will be ours.”

Rickard Falkvinge, leader of The Pirate Party, which is trying to reform laws around copyright and patents in the digital age – told the BBC that the verdict was “a gross injustice”.

“This wasn’t a criminal trial, it was a political trial. It is just gross beyond description that you can jail four people for providing infrastructure.

“There is a lot of anger in Sweden right now. File sharing is an institution here and while I cannot encourage people to break copyright law, I’m not following it and I don’t agree with it.

“Today’s events make file sharing a hot political issue and we’re going to take this to the European Parliament.”

So down, but not out. The website itself is still running but may not be for much longer.

The media companies are however just plugging a small leak from a torrent of file sharing that cannot be stopped. The sooner they change policy and go with the tide of change the better for us all.

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If your a UK radio listener as well as a TV watcher then you could soon have instant online access to every radio station in the UK from a BBC online streaming service.

The BBC are planning to launch an online radio player available to every radio broadcaster by the end of the year. Using an application similar to the iPlayer users can search and listen to radio stations like the BBC’s catch up TV service but for radio.

The plan in the longer term would be to use it like a TV recorder is used now. Being able to live pause, put it on hard drive, listen to recordings from the past seven days and pre book radio also.

The preliminary proposals, which would need approval from the BBC Trust, would align the radio sector with the television industry, which already offers catch-up TV and the ability to pre-record programmes from both commercial and BBC channels.

They are also part of a BBC effort to prove that it can help out its cash strapped rivals by sharing its technology and software and work on a common standard.

Such proposals – which include plans to work with rival ITV on regional news, are all part of the corporation’s policy of promoting partnerships which it hopes will deflect from recent calls for its £3.5bn annual licence fee to be frozen or cut.

BBC director general Mark Thompson, indicated that the BBC’s commercial rivals needed help given the dire economic conditions of much of the ad-supported industry: “Is the BBC going to stand by or take tangible, measurable steps to partner, support and share some of its advantages to other media players?” he said.

The BBC move to partner old rivals is understood to have received tacit backing from the government. Communications minister Stephen Carter is keen to promote digital radio, which has failed to make a viable return for most commercial operators.

Andrew Harrison, the chief executive of Radio Centre, the trade body which acts for more than 90% of all radio stations, has been involved in early meetings with the BBC and welcomes the development. He also downplayed competition concerns, saying that the plan was for a standard that would not be closed to small players, unlike the Kangaroo project recently rejected by competition authorities. “The concept for this is entirely open access and will showcase all UK radio,” he commented.

You can listen to all existing BBC radio streams using the iPlayer but this new service will collect all radio stations from around the Country iinto one place. Or you could just browse our worldwide radio streams online while your waiting for the BBC to sort out the detail.

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In these dark days of the ‘credit crunch’ and recession, any reduction in household costs is welcome. And you can make a start by moving some of your viewing online. Many TV shows and movies are available to watch via internet TV. I am not saying cancel Cable or Satellite subscriptions, but you could certainly cut back without compromising your viewing pleasure.

Many people are (still!) unaware that you can watch pretty much any hit TV show, full episodes or Movies on your PC for no cost at all, apart from electricity and broadband costs off course.

To start watching for free you just need to know where to look. And luckily for you, your in just the right place right now. Already many people are connecting laptops to their television sets via a video cable, whilst others are using their game console and other devices to view Internet TV.

Where to find the good content to watch?

Any TV show, movie or even sports events are all available either using illegal downloading, Free TV networks or via a TV on demand paid services. Usually by visiting the networks own Website (check out our catchup tv list) or an aggregator like Hulu or sling. The biggest problem doing this is sometimes finding the content. But you can look through the TV guides to find out whats on and where.

Are full TV shows available?

Yes you can find many full episodes of hit TV shows on the worldwide web. Much like traditional TV, they will contain advertising and the shows are generally delayed by a few hours from initial airing. The downside to watching this way is that the networks will usually delete the show after a few days.

Are full movies available online?

You can find many movies from the catch up tv websites, however the latest Hollywood blockbusters are not available for free. You can purchase a viewing straight over the net using a service such as Netflix, iTunes or Amazon Video On Demand services.

What is the picture quality like?

That depends on many things. Most networks have got their act together and offer great streaming speed and quality. It’s not ‘jaw dropping’ but it is fine to view. And dont forget many shows are available in HDTV. Of course you will need a reasonably recent computer and fast broadband connection to ensure a great picture.

What about sports events?

This is one area where online isnt so great. All sports fans may be disappointed at the selection. You can usually see the game highlights but the full and live events are only available from slightly dubious sources such as Chinese P2P networks such as TVants and PPlive etc.

So shall i cancel my cable TV?

I think it’s just a little too early to cancel your subscriptions and throw out the TV just yet. Internet TV should be seen as a growing service that will get better and better. However it cannot yet totally replace what you can get on your cable or satellite deals.

What you can do however is possibly downsize your cable bill and go online to watch more TV. It is after all going to be the future, so get watching internet TV now.

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All the popular online video sites like Youtube, MySpace, Metacafe etc all stream their movies onto your screen using a Flash video format known as .flv instead of letting the viewer just download the video onto their hard drive.

And why do they do this you ask? Well its something called advertising. If they can keep us on their website then whilst you are viewing the content you are also subliminally being bombarded with advertising. As long as we stay on the site they have a chance to get some revenue from us. Also of course you may bookmark a fantastic video only to find its been removed next time you look!

Now help is at hand with some great sites that allow you to keep, download and preserve your beloved videos from the net before they become erased. After downloading to your PC you can watch the video stream to your PC. Transfer it to your iphone or ipod or other device and feel happy in the knowledge that its yours forever..

TVU Player is a controversial Peer 2 Peer player by China based TVU networks uses P2P technology to broadcast TV programs live over the Web. The player has caught media attention over the fact that it streams regular TV channels via the internet without permission.

TVU Player is like the other popular P2P software available Free. its not a very stable creation and you may find that it fails to initialize or the channels lag. If you are watching a popular TV program there will be a large number of peers sharing the load and the transmission should run nicely. For this reason its always a good idea to check the number of peers before viewing a particular channel.

TVU networks brings you programs from around the world that you can’t get from your local cable and satellite providers. TVUplayer streams about 40 different channels including some biggies, from a large American sports network to the major Chinese television channel: ESPN, ESPN 2, ABC, HBO, CNN 1-4, NBC, CNBC, Fox, CBS, Al Jazeera, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Animal Planet, NASA TV, DW TV (German), Comedy Central, Sports (NBA, NHL), CCTV-5, Fashion TV, E-Music, Hollywood Movie channels amongst others. You can watch everything from hard to find special interest TV channels, international sports channels, music, movie, lifestyle, news, and more.

How to use TVUplayer

1. Download the TVU networks TVUplayer software and install it.
2. Run TVU networks TVUplayer. The list of available channels will appear.
3. Double click on the TV channel in the channel list to watch it.

Note: Windows Media Player should launch itself after selecting a channel. Make sure that you have already installed the Windows Media Player.

4. Start watching TV.

Its a good idea to refresh the channel list occasionally to check whether new channels are on offer.

TVUPlayer Overview

Pros:

* Very simple and easy To Use
* View channels from anywhere in the world
* Can view CBS, ABC, Fox, Comedy Central etc if you are not in the US
* Most of the channels are good quality and can be viewed full screen
* It is freeware
* Has an online TV Listings program guide

Cons:

* Legality questionable
* Channels take a while to get started
* Some channels are poor quality
* No pause, on demand video, rewind, recording features etc.
* TV streams are slightly behind the live broadcast
* Channels can potentially dissapear anytime if someone stops broadcasting them